A taskforce set up to fight against counterfeit, adulterated, fake and unregistered drugs in the country has accused the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) of trying to suffocate the businesses of patent medicine dealers by claiming that they were quacks. The taskforce which was set up by the Nigerian Association of Patent Medicine Dealers (NAPMED) said such claim was aimed at tarnishing the image of the medicine dealers. Now, the taskforce in defence of the NAPMED said its members were genuine and not fake because they had been trained to administer drugs to save lives. Apart from saving lives, the taskforce said medicine dealers were contributing to the growth of the economy as it continued to bring down unemployment and poverty levels.
Lucky Chukwuma, national taskforce chairman for counterfeit and fake drugs, who spoke exclusively to BDSUNDAY in Asaba, Delta State, lamented: “PCN is trying to push us out of business notwithstanding that the NAPMED was registered far back 1962 while the pharmacy council that was just registered in 1994.”
Chukwuma who was on a visit to National Food and Drugs Administration Agency (NAFDAC) office, Asaba, said rather than push patent medicine dealers out of business, the PCN should be partners in progress with NAPMED as it is done in other African Countries.
The chairman who said the taskforce had the mandate to checkmate the activities of fake patent medicine dealers across the 36 states of the federation and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said: “National President of NAPMED appointed my committee last year to fight against counterfeit and fake unregistered drugs and we are to serve for a period of four years”.
Chukwuma, also a patent medicine dealer, continued, “I’m here to visit NAFDAC office in Delta State, to introduce myself and my committee and to speak on the way forward. I’m here to let the office know that we are not quacks but trained people. I’m here to tell them that we have a committee of this nature that goes round to visit members’ shops to know those that are violating or selling counterfeit and fake drugs and submit them to the appropriate authorities for appropriate action. That’s why we are here; to show the government that we are not quacks as PCN is claiming. For you to be a patent medicine dealer, you must have spent about two to three years on how to handle drugs. The difference is that we don’t prescribe because we are not medical doctors. We don’t administer drugs but we display OCTA (over the counters drugs)”, he explained.
To buttress his point, the taskforce chairman who hails from Delta State explained: “Let me talk of my state, Delta. The Pharmacy Council in Delta State which is like our rival because they are a union under Health, said they are educated people and that our members did not attend the university; so they are trying to push us out of the business. This is not right because this union has been registered over 50 years ago whereas the Pharmacy Council was just registered in 1994 and we are ready to work with them so that we make sure we have only genuine drugs in circulation in the country. But we have seen they are trying to phase us out.”
He went on: “We now discover that any time we come for renewal of our licences, if we come with 30 members, they would seize 25 and release five. We now discovered that they are trying to phase us out. If you go to the whole Asaba, the whole pharmacy shops in Asaba are not up to 50. How can only 50 pharmacy shops disseminate drugs to the large population in Asaba? It’s like they are trying to suffocate people from getting grassroots healthcare. That is why, if you watch now, the Federal Government is introducing health centres in the various villages, and these people can easily go to the patent medicine shops and say: “I need paracetamol of N20 or N30 and they will get. It is not everything that must take somebody to the hospital. Those issues that are difficult for us, we refer them to the health centres, clinics or hospitals.”
He disclosed that registered patent medicine dealers in Asaba alone are about 150. “You can see the nature of Delta State, some are across the riverine, waterlog areas and in the hinterlands. If our members are not there, the people will be dying easily. Ordinary headache can kill somebody”, he lamented.
He went on: “What we are telling the government is that they should allow us and work with us. They can monitor us, advise us, organise seminars and workshops and train all these people, like what happens in other African countries. I’ve been to Ghana. They work hand-in-hand with the patent medicine dealers. I don’t know why Nigeria’s case is different.”
He said his team was not at war with the pharmacy council but condemned the attitude of the pharmacists who he accused of striving to be the only drugs dealers in the land. He said rather than war, the council should see the committee as one committed to disseminating original drugs instead of listening to ideas from some quarters that patent medicine dealers were selling fake drugs and should be wiped out.
Chukwuma said his team does not arrest but checkmates. “When we check and found out any of these people with fake drugs, we submit them to authorities. Those we’ve found are uncountable. Today, September 5 (when he spoke to our correspondent) I’m in Delta State, I’ve submitted my report to the NAFDAC; same I did to NDLEA and narcotic agency etc. Once we do this, they would control them, and those that need to pay fine, they would fine them. Sometimes, they would seal someone’s shop and tell him or her to remove those products. Then, he or she is allowed to go and make a change, or leave the business. It is not they alone; we also checkmate even the community pharmacy shops”.
He noted that it was easy for his team to detect fake and counterfeit drugs: “We’ve gone to series of training. Last week, we just came back from Abuja where we did our national rallies. To identify fake and counterfeit drugs is very easy. If you do not see the address or logo of any drug, then you have a fake drug on your hands. If you see some genuine drugs, only by the type, you will know; and those companies that are genuinely registered, it is easier for us who are trained in the business to identify them straightaway,” he stressed.
On his association’s contribution to the economy, he asserted, “I can tell you that we contribute to the growth of the economy because we create employment and our members that we’ve trained and registered are today self-employed. They will not go and disturb government for job or go and queue up for employment. We’ll train more people so that this issue of unemployment will stop. We can even employ some drivers to help us distribute our drugs. We can employ receptionists and cleaners to reduce unemployment in the country.”
On the kind of partnership he wants with pharmacy council, Chukwuma said: “Let the pharmacists see us as partners in progress. Let them be organising workshops and seminars with our people. Then, it is we at the grassroots that will invite our grassroots members who are registered to come and listen to their lectures. And from time to time they will regulate, give us licence that is genuine from the Federal Ministry of Health, not the one they will print and say you should or should not sell medicine. What they do today is that if they see a patent medicine dealer here, they would say: ‘Pack! Put a pharmacy’. When we say pharmacists, not the ones that are producing drugs, there’s what we call Community Pharmacy, those people who have 3rd class in pharmacy. They would say they were Community Pharmacists. In our association, we have educated people and they should not be told they cannot simply administer paracetamol”.
Ignatius Chukwu & Mercy Enoch
